GEHRT: Wisconsin’s anti-union bill could impact us all

AMY GEHRT

Wednesday

Feb 23, 2011 at 12:01 AMFeb 23, 2011 at 11:02 PM

Just weeks after gleefully blasting Illinois for passing substantial tax increases and trying to entice businesses to move operations across state lines, the governor of Wisconsin finds himself squarely in the national spotlight — and this time, it’s Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s turn to try to explain an unpopular proposal aimed at overcoming a budget shortfall.

Just weeks after gleefully blasting Illinois for passing substantial tax increases and trying to entice businesses to move operations across state lines, the governor of Wisconsin finds himself squarely in the national spotlight — and this time, it’s Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s turn to try to explain an unpopular proposal aimed at overcoming a budget shortfall.

Last week, Walker unveiled a sweeping budget-repair bill that would require state, county and local workers — except firefighters, police and the state patrol — to pay more into their pension and health care plans.

If the measure had stopped there, the issue may not have stirred up such controversy nationwide. But the bill would also drastically curtail the unions’ collective bargaining rights, taking away negotiating power for things such as working conditions and benefits and limiting collective bargaining solely to pay increases — and even then, increases would have to be lower than the consumer price index (the most widely used measure of inflation) unless voters approved a local referendum agreeing to a larger pay hike. In addition, unions would not be permitted to make members pay dues and would have to hold yearly votes to stay formed.

Angry opponents of the proposal have descended in droves on the Wisconsin Capitol every day for the past week to mount public protests. Labor advocates across the country have spoken out, labeling the bill a thinly veiled attempt to destroy unions in the state.
The measure was slated for a vote today, but in an unusual move, Democratic lawmakers fled the state late last week and have gone into hiding to delay the vote while they try to hammer out a compromise — leaving the Legislature one vote short of the 20-member minimum required to be present in order to pass any item that spends state money.
The Democrats say the unions are willing to make concessions and accept that workers must make additional contributions to their health care and pension plans. Moderate Republican Sen. Dale Schultz has proposed his own compromise, which would temporarily suspend collective bargaining rights until 2013.

As of this writing, Walker remains unwilling to compromise at all. In a phone interview with the Associated Press, Sen. Jon Erpenbach said Democrats who have tried to reach the administration are not even having their phone calls returned. He added it was unlikely they would return until Walker reconsidered his position.

Suspending collective bargaining rights seems like a slippery slope to me, because it may be more difficult to make an argument for reinstating them once two years have passed without them. However, requiring workers to pay more toward their own health care and retirement plans sounds reasonable. It’s only fair government employees shoulder some of the burden workers in the private sector already bear, especially in lean economic times such as these.

If the unions were refusing to make the financial concessions, I would likely be writing a very different column. Pension systems in this country are in need of a major overhaul, and I believe government workers should be treated in the same manner as those of us in the private sector. It’s unfair that people with pensions are able to count on a comfortable retirement at a relatively early age, while the rest of us must work a decade or two longer and pay into a Social Security fund that may not even have any money left by the time we reach retirement age.

Collective bargaining entails far more than money, though. Unions help ensure that workers are treated fairly and not subjected to unsafe working conditions. And the gains they make in those areas often trickle down to non-union jobs. The United States would be a very different country today if unions hadn’t fought so hard for a number of the rights we all now take for granted, including minimum wage and two-day weekends. What happens in Wisconsin will serve as a barometer for those who are watching carefully to gauge how a similar proposal might go over in their own struggling state. If Walker succeeds, Wisconsin workers won’t be the only ones who suffer — it may be that we all may find ourselves with fewer rights before long.

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